[324] Mrs. Piozzi (Anec. p. 97) tells how one day at Streatham 'when he was musing over the fire, a young gentleman called to him suddenly, and I suppose he thought disrespectfully, in these words:—"Mr. Johnson, would you advise me to marry?" "I would advise no man to marry, Sir," returns for answer in a very angry tone Dr. Johnson, "who is not likely to propagate understanding," and so left the room. Our companion looked confounded, and I believe had scarce recovered the consciousness of his own existence, when Johnson came back, and drawing his chair among us, with altered looks and a softened voice, joined in the general chat, insensibly led the conversation to the subject of marriage, where he laid himself out in a dissertation so useful, so elegant, so founded on the true knowledge of human life, and so adorned with beauty of sentiment, that no one ever recollected the offence except to rejoice in its consequences.' This 'young gentleman,' according to Mr. Hayward (Mrs. Piozzi's Auto. i. 69), was Sir John Lade, the hero of the ballad which Johnson recited on his death-bed. For other instances of Johnson's seeking a reconciliation, see post, May 7, 1773, and April 12 and May 8, 1778.
[325] 'The False Alarm, his first and favourite pamphlet, was written at our house between eight o'clock on Wednesday night and twelve o'clock on Thursday night. We read it to Mr. Thrale when he came very late home from the House of Commons.' Piozzi's Anec. p. 41. See also post, Nov. 26, 1774, where Johnson says that 'The Patriot was called for by my political friends on Friday, was written on Saturday.'
[326] Wilkes was first elected member for Middlesex at the General Election of March, 1768. He did not take his seat, having been thrown into prison before Parliament met. On Feb. 3, 1769, he was declared incapable of being elected, and a new writ was ordered. On Feb. 16 he was again elected, and without opposition. His election was again declared void. On March 16 he was a third time elected, and without opposition. His election was again declared void. On April 13 he was a fourth time elected by 1143 votes against 296 given for Colonel Luttrell. On the 14th the poll taken for him was declared null and void, and on the 15th, Colonel Luttrell was declared duly elected. Parl. Hist. xvi. 437, and Almon's Wilkes, iv. 4. See post, Oct. 12, 1779.
[327] The resolution of expulsion was carried on Feb. 17, 1769. Parl. Hist. xvi. 577. It was expunged on May 3, 1782. Ib xxii. 1407.
[328] In the original it is not rulers, but railers. Johnson's Works, vi. 176.
[329] How slight the change of system was is shown by a passage in Forster's Goldsmith, ii. 388. Mr. Forster mentions a 'memorial in favour of the most worthless of hack-partizans, Shebbeare, which obtained for him his pension of £200 a year. It is signed by fifteen members of the House of Commons, and it asks for a pension "that he may be enabled to pursue that laudable inclination which he has of manifesting his zeal for the service of his Majesty and his Government"; in other words, that a rascal shall be bribed to support a corrupt administration.' Horace Walpole, in 1757 (Letters, iii. 54), described Shebbeare as one 'who made a pious resolution of writing himself into a place or the pillory, but who miscarried in both views.' He added in a note, 'he did write himself into a pillory before the conclusion of that reign, and into a pension at the beginning of the next, for one and the same kind of merit—writing against King William and the Revolution.' See also post, end of May, 1781.
[330] Johnson could scarcely be soothed by lines such as the following:—
'Never wilt thou retain the hoarded store,
In virtue affluent, but in metal poor;
* * * * *
Great is thy prose; great thy poetic strain,
Yet to dull coxcombs are they great in vain.
[331] Stockdale, who was born in 1736 and died in 1811, wrote Memoirs of his Life—a long, dull book, but containing a few interesting anecdotes of Johnson. He thought himself, and the world also, much ill-used by the publishers, when they passed him over and chose Johnson to edit the Lives of the Poets. He lodged both in Johnson's Court and in Bolt Court, but preserved little good-will for his neighbour. Johnson, in the Life of Waller (Works, vii. 194), quoting from Stockdale's Life of that poet, calls him 'his last ingenious biographer.' I. D'Israeli says that 'the bookseller Flexney complained that whenever this poet came to town, it cost him £20. Flexney had been the publisher of Churchill's Works, and never forgetting the time when he published The Rosciad, he was speculating all his life for another Churchill and another quarto poem. Stockdale usually brought him what he wanted, and Flexney found the workman, but never the work.' Calamities of Authors, ed. 1812, ii. 314.
[332] 'I believe most men may review all the lives that have passed within their observation without remembering one efficacious resolution, or being able to tell a single instance of a course of practice suddenly changed in consequence of a change of opinion, or an establishment of determination.' Idler, No. 27. 'These sorrowful meditations fastened upon Rasselas's mind; he passed four months in resolving to lose no more time in idle resolves.' Rasselas, ch. iv.